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Wednesday, February 22, 2006

My friend Vanya

One of the great blessings I receive from living in Ukraine is the friendship of so many wonderful people. Our church family is close knit and vibrant. Here is a story from one of my teen friends, Vanya, concerning a recent lesson and its application...

Do you want to hear an illustration for your sermon on false commitments? Yesterday after the class I took Dasha and Masha home. I visited a little and when I decided to go home it was about 10:20 p.m. I was going to the bus stop thinking how nice it would be if the bus would come at once. It's not very pleasant to be waiting in the cold. I was about 200 metres away from the bus stop when I saw the bus there! I started running asking God to make the bus wait for me. I didn't have much hope, because I was too far and buses do not stay for more than a minute. I was running and the bus was still there! So to my great joy and surprise I got to the bus praising God for the miracle. But my surprise got even bigger when I found out that it was a WRONG BUS! I almost felt God laughing! I realized how foolish I was! Instead of asking God to help me get home quickly and safely, I asked for that crazy bus to wait for me, because I thought I knew better! Today before the Lord's Supper I told the Church this story and the point was that luckily, our Lord didn't ask me how I wanted to be saved!

1 comment:

Anonymous
said...

What an awesome lesson for those of us who do the very same thing! We sure miss the wonderful friends and "family" that we had the pleasure to get to know while we were there. We serve an awesome God who I know occasionally laughs at me, too. I am thankful for Vanya and those brothers and sisters in Christ who can laugh alongside Him and who are humble enough to share experiences like this with others! Hope all is well with you all. We think of you all so often and are praying daily for your ministry. Love in Christ, Jennie